The present invention relates to an automatic article transport system which is applicable to multi-storied building construction, dockyards, factories, physical distribution warehouses, etc.
There has heretofore been a known automatic article transport system in which rails are laid from a transport start position to a destination position, and an article as an object of transport is suspended from a transport device running on the rails, thereby allowing the article to be automatically transported to the destination position, as is seen in a part of a physical distribution warehouse or factory. However, it is difficult to employ such an automatic transport system for multi-storied building construction, dockyard, etc., since articles, e.g., materials, parts, etc., which are handled there, are large in terms of size and weight. Therefore, tower cranes or portal cranes are generally used at such places.
Incidentally, it has been apprehended in recent years that the term for completion may be delayed or quality may be degraded due to the shortage of skilled laborers. To solve this problem, various kinds of study and development have been made so as to enable a machine or a computer to perform operations which have heretofore depended on manual labor, thereby creating a safer and more comfortable working environment, shortening the construction period, ensuring stable quality and reducing the labor required for operation.
In the case of multi-storied building construction, for example, it has been considered to employ a system in which the highest floor, including the roof, is first constructed, and then the remaining floors are each constructed under control of a computer with the highest floor being lifted up successively, thereby completing the desired building. In this case, it is necessary at the production site on each floor to transport building materials, e.g., columns, beams, floors, exterior walls, etc., in a predetermined sequence and at high efficiency.
If the above-described automatic transport system is applied to the transport of such materials, since fixed rails are used for running a transport device, a large number of rails must be provided from a transport start position to a destination position. In addition, it is difficult to run a plurality of transport devices in a limited space.